Burrito Mexpress closes Charles City location

By Travis Fischer, tkfischer@charlescitypress.com

Charles City’s downtown goes into 2024 with one fewer place for lunch.

Shortly before the holiday, Burrito Mexpress packed up and moved out of its location at Hot Shots Billiards.

“It wasn’t anything I was expecting,” said owner Joe Alvarez, who opened the Charles City location last year as the first expansion of his Humboldt business. “It wasn’t my intention to pull the plug. It was kind of a number of factors that lead to that decision.”

Celebrating its first anniversary in Charles City on Dec. 13, Alvarez said Burrito Mexpress had a modest first year in operation.

“It wasn’t doing horrible but it wasn’t doing great,” said Alvarez. “We were gaining traction with our customer base here.”

Rising costs and difficulty in finding and keeping staff were an ongoing struggle for the burrito business, which Alvarez said was barely breaking even. Still he was optimistic after getting past the first year hurdle, looking forward to offering new specials and even considering expanding into a dedicated building.

However, employee retention ultimately ended up being too big a challenge to overcome. The loss of the Charles City location’s general manager presented Alvarez with a difficult choice to make. Already struggling to maintain staff in Humboldt, the prospect of finding a replacement manager in Charles City was deemed too difficult a task for the sake of a store that was already struggling.

“It’s everywhere,” said Alvarez. “Whether you’re in the medical field or manufacturing or food service, keeping staff is the biggest challenge of any employer.”

By Dec. 23, Burrito Mexpress had cleared out of Hot Shots and announced that it would be indefinitely closed.

“Not what I wanted, but my hand was forced,” said Alvarez. “I would have liked to stay in Charles City.”

Alvarez says that the Burrito Mexpress food truck may return to Charles City for events this year, but there are no immediate plans to reopen a fixed location.

“I want to thank the Charles City community for accepting a new business like us,” said Alvarez. “The feedback was generally positive and I appreciate the customer base we did get over there.”